Technical Field
Exemplary embodiments of this disclosure relate to a cooling device and an image forming apparatus including the cooling device.
Description of the Related Art
Image forming apparatuses are used as, for example, copiers, printers, facsimile machines, and multi-functional devices having at least one of the foregoing capabilities. As one type of image forming apparatus, electrophotographic image forming apparatuses are known. Such an electrophotographic image forming apparatus may have a fixing device to fuse toner under heat and fix a toner image on a recording material (e.g., a sheet of paper). Such recording materials having toner images fixed thereon may be stacked on an output tray of the image forming apparatus.
In such a case, the recording materials having toner images are stacked one on another on, e.g., the output tray in heated state. As a result, toner is softened by heat retained in the stacked recording materials, and pressure due to the weight of the stacked recording materials may cause the recording materials to adhere to each other with softened toner. If the recording materials adhering to each other are forcefully separated, the fixed toner images might be damaged. Such an adhering state of the stacked recording materials is referred to as blocking. To suppress blocking, a cooling device may be employed to cool a recording material after a toner image is fixed on the recording material under heat.
For example, a cooling device is proposed to absorb heat from a recording material with cooling members while sandwiching and conveying the recording material by conveyance belts (e.g., JP-2010-002644-A1, JP-2006-201657-A1, and JP-H8-083009-A1). In other words, the cooling members absorb heat from a recording material via the conveyance belts. Alternatively, it is known that cooling the recording material from both faces rather than a single face allows more efficient cooling performance (e.g., JP-2012-098677-A1). The cooling members may be provided with a cooling-liquid circuit including a heat receiving part, a radiation part, and a circulation channel. The cooling-liquid circuit causes the cooling members to function as the heat receiving part to receive heat from a recording material. The radiation part radiates heat of the heat receiving part. Cooling liquid is circulated through the circulation circuit via the heat receiving part and the radiation part.